Pass The Popcorn: Meet The Man Who Will Star In Broadway’s Tupac Shakur Musical

Saul Williams just landed the role of a lifetime! The actor, poet, artist and musician will star in the upcoming Broadway musical “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” based on the lyrics of Tupac Shakur.

The non-biographical production, produced by the late rapper’s mother Afeni Shakur, will not feature Pac as character but his music will drive the storyline. It’s billed as a tale “about friendship, love, change, family and hope—an original work that is at once a love story and an unretouched picture of life in the streets.”

If you are not familiar with Williams, he’s a New York native and leading figure in the slam poetry movement. He was the star and co-writer of Marc Levin’s Slam, the film that took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1998.

According to the Hollywood Reproter, other Broadway veterans in the cast include “Christopher Jackson (After Midnight, In the Heights), Saycon Sengbloh (Motown: The Musical, Hair), Ben Thompson (Matilda, American Idiot) and John Earl Jelks, who appeared in the August Wilson plays Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf. Newcomers Joshua Boone and Dyllon Burnside complete the principal cast.”